A story by me that appeared in Indian Express!!!

Today, cleaned my cupboard. Found a lot of things that I used in 10th and 12th standard. Even found my class photo of my 1st standard. Believe it or not! I could recollect the names of 38 out of the 45 students present in the photo. Ooooh nostalgic!!!.I also found a newspaper cutting. It was a story I had written for Indian Express vibes. The newspaper had conducted a workshop in our school and I was 1 among the 30 students selected for it. We were given 1 hr ( really wanted more time) to write a short story. I was in 10th standard then. If I remember correctly, I was trying to relate the Indian struggle for independence with various insurance policies. The idea was humour, in a sense it was kinda derived one ( a lot depends on reader's imagination). But this story had good appreciation in school and was read out aloud in all divisions of class 10 or 11 (not sure about that). A small part of the story happened to me and the rest was cooked up. I have typed the story as it appeared in the Vibes issue dated 3 December 2003.The story.....

The Unwelcome Guest

Mohan, a student of class X, was seriously preparing for his social studies examination. For him, history was a haard nut to crack and he hated history like anything. Just then,at around 1 o'clock Chandrasekhar, an old friend of Mohan's father came home.He had not been to that house for a long time, but at that time he had some job to be done. Chandrasekhar was an LIC agent. Knowing that Mohan's father hadn't taken any policy, he had come to talk about the various policies of life insurance.
Meanwhile, Mohan was entering into "The struggle for Indian independence".Chandrasekhar, as was his nature, had loud voice. When he spoke, it was a blaring cacophony. Poor Mohan! He was studying the policies and satyagrahas launched by Gandhiji to attain independence. it was exactly when Chandrasekhar started talking about Jeevan Sanjeev, Jeevan Sneha, Jeevan Kumar etc. It was just horrible.
And then Mohan read during his studies" In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi launched the famous Jeevan Sneha March, which broke the salt laws for children below thirteen years of age!!!"
It was nearly 4 o'clock in the evening, the time for tea, when everyone in the house thought of chasing away Chandrasekharwith a cup of tea. But to their suprise, he started talking about his childhood...how he played cricket with Mohan's father, how they used to steal mangoes from the vendor and blah! blah! blah!. But to Mohan it was like a Jallianwala bagh.
Mohan was still "fighting for freedom". The 'Quit India movement ' launched at 4 o'clock was a total failure for the family. As talks came to a close, it was nearly 7 o'clock. Chandrasekhar had an appointment with the dentist at 7.30, so he had to bid good-bye to the family and Gandhiji's policies led India to her independence.